Astros’ full-fledged rebuilding starts with arrival of more youngsters

The Astros set out on the road to the year twenty-blank-teen on Monday night.

There is no known destination. And who knows? Just the inclusion of the suffix “teen” for the year this all gets fixed could be optimistic. Ask a Pirates or Orioles fan.

And with no finish line, there’s certainly no map to get there. There will be twists unforeseen, like when the 2010 youth movement sputtered with the injury to Jason Castro and Sunday’s demotions of Brett Wallace and Chris Johnson.

But these days, with the Astros having perhaps bottomed out after chasing relevance since the 2005 World Series, often to the detriment of a longer-term plan, there are plenty of seats available on the ride.

Players are moving through the system faster, and even the general manager admits some are suiting up for the big league club before they’re fully prepared.

“There are a lot of teams that have young, untested players in multiples at the big league level,” Wade said. “The day of the finished products plural — because some guys do show up at the big league level as finished products – are over.”

“We’re a land of opportunity,” Wade added, repeating a phrase he has said often and acted upon often in the last two weeks.

Three times, he has called up a player directly from Class AA Corpus Christi, and that trio of Jose Altuve, J.D. Martinez and newest newcomer Jimmy Paredes formed a third of the batting order Monday night.

“It’s definitely the right organization to be in right now for young guys,” said Martinez, a 20th-round pick in 2009 who twice skipped levels in his fast-tracked development. “It’s definitely exciting to come in and not be the only one.”

Those three, as well as many of the other young players, will struggle with some of the simplest things, though none of that trio specifically has shown any overall shortcomings in his limited exposure to the big leagues.

As those driving this ride, manager Brad Mills and his coaching staff will have a decidedly different job than the staffs of most contenders. From this point on, it will be less about making out the right lineup and more about getting back to what coaching is at many lower levels of the system and of baseball in general: coaching.

“There are things they should have learned – and I’m sure they have learned at the minor league level – and you’re not going to have a whole lot of patience with those things if they screw up,” Mills said. “We’re going to have patience with maybe some plate appearances, out of position, jumps on balls, things of that nature, but at the same time, that’s where the instruction comes in.”

Monday’s position players included, in batting order, a AAA callup, a AA callup, a No. 3 hitter with two career home runs, Carlos Lee, another AA callup, Clint Barmes, another AA callup and the intended backup catcher.

Only two of those players were intended to be regulars this year. But as Brian Bogusevic, Jose Altuve, Jason Bourgeois, J.D. Martinez, Jimmy Paredes and Humberto Quintero, none of whom deserve to go unnamed, illustrated with their 4-3, 10-inning win over the Reds , if you’re looking for short-term satisfaction, this can still be a fun underdog to root for.

If you’re waiting to see the Astros be competitive again, well, enjoy the ride.

When the Astros traded Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt last year, they were sending out players with a combined 10 guaranteed months on their contracts. In Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn this past weekend, they shipped off players with much more time, all under baseball’s artificial cost controls.

The message, in turning them into eight younger players, was that the trip up the division standings could be long, much longer than the time they’d definitely be around – Bourn through 2012 and Pence through 2013.